Flood of heroin ravaging city

Chicago Tribune ^ | January 30, 2004 | John Bebow

[Condor51]

Emilio Chavez Garcia was 50 when he called his estranged wife in Puerto Rico on Christmas Eve to say he wanted to come home. Maybe this time, she hoped, he would finally kick the heroin addiction that had ruined their family.

Rafael Diaz was 36 and had dreams, too. Two months from getting off parole for peddling heroin, he carried a pledge in his day planner: "If I do not build a case against myself, all goals will be accomplished."

Within 10 minutes of each other on Jan. 7--the syringes next to their bodies...

[Condor51]

Gee this is a shocker (not); during the last two years there's been 628 heroin/opiate related deaths in Chicago-Cook County (that's 6 a week) AND in 2000 "heroin/morphine" caused or contributed to 499 in Chicago BUT only 194 deaths in New York City!

Sooooo not only does Chicago surpass NY in gun deaths, it takes the prize in drug deaths too. Mayor Daley, you're doin' a heck of a fine job!

NOTE: for those who don't know, the Daley Machine runs Cook County too.

[Guillermo]

Six hours earlier, Garcia had dropped by his cousin's apartment for coffee, small talk and to pick up a $1,200 federal government benefits check.

Says it all, right there.

[lelio]

Mayor Daley, you're doin' a heck of a fine job!

He's got more important things to do. When he's not out drawing Xs on airports he wants to claim he's protesting gun shops

[Right_Handed_Writer]

Come to Chicago and get your Daley dose. Fly in to O'Hare and ride out on a horse with no name.

If we don't kill you first.

[Blood of Tyrants]

This can't be true! Because it is ILLEGAL to buy and sell heroin and Daly tells us that laws PREVENT crimes. At least that is the message he endorses on "gun-control".

[BillyJack]

"ride out on a horse with no name"

America-My favorite music group from the seventies.

[pabianice]

Andf this is my fault...how...?

[CSM]

How many tobacco related deaths have occured in Chicago. I can think of at least 3 in NYC. (bouncer, and a couple of smugglers/dealers) You better get to work in Chicago to ensure that you lead in all catagories.

(heavy sarcasm from Hockeytown!)

[Jack Black]

You'll be happy to know the song is not about Heroin, according to its author:

The band went into Morgan Sound Studios (where Beckley had played bass on demo sessions a few years before) to record the song, with Samwell producing and Kim Haworth brought in on drums. At Samwell's suggestion, "Desert Song" was retitled "A Horse With No Name."

A tune as famous as this one deserves a detailed explanation, though Bunnell suggests that its meaning has evolved over time: "I was messing around with some open tunings--I tuned the A string way down to an E, and I found this little chord, and I just moved my two fingers back and forth, and the entire song came from basically three chords. I wanted to capture the imagery of the desert, because I was sitting in this room in England, and it was rainy. The rain was starting to get to us, and I wanted to capture the desert and the heat and the dryness."

The imagery came from Dewey's childhood: "I had spent a good deal of time poking around in the high desert with my brother when we lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base [in California]. And we'd drive through Arizona and New Mexico. I loved the cactus and the heat. I was trying to capture the sights and sounds of the desert, and there was an environmental message at the end. But it's grown to mean more for me. I see now that this anonymous horse was a vehicle to get me away from all the confusion and chaos of life to a peaceful, quiet place."

Bunnell adds an aside about his choice of language in the song: "I have taken a lot of poetic license in my use of grammar, and I always cringe a little bit at my use of 'aint's,' like 'ain't no one for to give you no pain' in "Horse." I've never actually spoken that way, but I think it conveys a certain honesty when you're not picking and choosing your words, and you use that kind of colloquialism."

"A Horse With No Name" broke more than the rules of English--it broke America as a major recording act in Britain, the U.S., and Europe. After reaching #3 in the U.K., it was released in the States, where it topped the Pop chart for three weeks in March/April 1972. It stirred some controversy--stations in Kansas City and elsewhere banned the song for supposed drug references ("horse" being a street name for heroin at the time).

The song's resemblance to Neil Young's work stirred some grumbling as well. Coincidentally or not, it was "A Horse With No Name" that bumped Young's "Heart Of Gold" out of the #1 slot on the U.S. Pop chart. "I know that virtually everyone, on first hearing, assumed it was Neil," Bunnell says. "I never fully shied away from the fact that I was inspired by him. I think it's in the structure of the song as much as in the town of my voice. It did hurt a little, because we got some pretty bad backlash. I've always attributed it more to people protecting their own heroes more than attacking me."

[KevinB]

"I have taken a lot of poetic license in my use of grammar, and I always cringe a little bit at my use of 'aint's,' like 'ain't no one for to give you no pain' in "Horse."

And he doesn't cringe at the use of the word "for" in that line. I cringe every time I hear it and I didn't even write it.

[BillyJack]

Thanks for the info!